This small Class B camper van behind me
is a European camper made by Font Vendôme on the Renault Master chassis.
Now, this camper van is actually one we rented in Italy.
We've been in it for a few days, so today, I'm going to give you a full tour inside and out.
[music]
Let's first talk about the chassis.
Font Vendôme built this on the Renault Master chassis.
This has a diesel engine,
and this particular one has a manual transmission, and it's front-wheel drive.
Font Vendôme is a French Class B camper van manufacturer,
and this particular model is the Master Van XS.
Now, there isn't too much on the exterior to show you,
but I do want to show you a couple things on the driver's side.
This is the water inlet. Now, when you take this lock off,
it's actually just an open hole, so you stick your hose in there,
and it's just, uh, gravity feed.
This is the door for the cassette toilet,
but here's the interesting one.
This is the grey water valve,
and it's currently in the closed position.
There's only about maybe four or five inches from this to the ground.
So if you go over a bump or you hit this, it's gonna open or break,
and all your grey water is gonna come spilling out onto the road.
If you want to see what the dump stations in Italy actually look like,
check out our last video about campervanning through Italy.
Now, on the passenger side, here's where the shore power plugs in,
and one interesting thing is, the cord on this is significantly thinner
than what we have in the US for a 30-amp or 50-amp plug,
and I believe one of the reasons for this is because this is 220 volts
rather than the 110 we have in the States.
There's also a manual Thule awning,
along with LED lights on the outside.
One last thing I want to mention before we go inside is that there is an entry step,
but it is manual. So you have to physically push a button to extend it
and then another button to retract it.
Now, starting at the front of the van,
both of the seats do flip around,
and to reiterate, you can see it's a manual.
Above the driver compartment is this little cubby
where we've been keeping the front and side shades, which actually work rather nicely.
They have suction cups on them.
You just suction cup them to the window,
and now, you don't have to worry about them falling out
or having to put your visor down to hold them in place.
There is a small cabinet here.
A window that flips out with bug and nightshades.
There's seating for four in here. So you have the two front seats,
and then two smaller seats for children with seatbelts,
and then this table.
This does flip over, so it gives you more room.
And then there's this side table
for whomever is sitting in the passenger seat.
So they can have dinner, play games, whatever.
And then the table does pull out if you want it to.
The other interesting thing about this is,
if you take this table and move it down to the second level,
there's actually a second bed you can put in here for a child or maybe two kids.
We decided to leave the bed at the rental place, because
we have no use for it, so why carry it around?
But I thought that was interesting and a nice use of space up here up front.
Above the living room area, there's a sunroof that can be opened.
And this has the same bug screen and nightshades that the other windows do.
You have a 12-volt outlet and a 220 outlet over here.
Interestingly enough, we've only found two standard outlets in this van so far.
One over here, and then I'll show you the other one later.
There is a TV,
and then in the kitchen area is where your second outlet is.
And then this refrigerator.
Now, they haven't pulled any of the plastic yet off the fridge,
but I really like this model, because
it opens on both sides.
There is a two-burner propane gas stove,
along with a small sink.
And then above the kitchen is a small cabinet.
There's also three drawers that are fairly nice-sized.
So the interior height of this van,
I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I can tell you I am 5'11,
I currently have my shoes on, and my head is rubbing up against the ceiling of the van.
So it's not too tall.
Now, some other features of the van.
There's a full-length mirror here, which Kait absolutely loves,
but then there's another large mirror in the bathroom.
And this is the wet bath here, so
let me try to step inside because it's pretty small, and I'll show you around.
I can't actually show you around the bathroom with me in here,
so I'll have to grab the camera from Kait.
But to give you an idea of the space in here, there isn't much of it.
One thing I should show you while I'm still standing in here is the shower area.
So, the way they've compartmentalized this bathroom is
this is the shower door, and it has to cover up the toilet area because this area is not sealed up.
So if you don't have this closed, water is going to get into this section.
So, here we go.
I don't know if I can do this-- Oh, there we go.
Okay.
So I've made the shower, and I have even less room now.
As you can see, I can't fully stand up in here.
I don't know how I would wash myself if I was taking a shower.
You'd have to be a much smaller person than I to do so.
I mean, I guess I could get myself wet.
But if I close the door, there's even less room.
That's the main reason we've been using the campground showers
and have been looking for campgrounds with showers,
because I don't think taking a shower in here would be realistic for either one of us.
Alright, y'all. I'm going to give you the tour of the bathroom
since Kait couldn't get the camera around with me in here.
Little ring for your towel,
soap, toilet paper holder,
another toilet paper holder.
There is a small sink in here.
Put that back up.
And then the cassette toilet with 4.6-gallon capacity.
Now would be a good time to mention that this has a 100-liter freshwater tank
as well as a 100-liter grey water tank.
So this is the control panel to kind of get the screen on.
You have to tap around. There we go.
We'll start here. This is the water level,
grey tank level,
house battery,
and chassis battery.
This indicates that we're plugged into shore power.
The current temperature inside the camper.
This icon is for some of the accessory lights in the camper.
It's currently on. Orange means on.
LED lights outside, and this is the water pump.
It's currently on. Now it's off.
Up here is the switch for the inverter.
There is a 100-amp-hour lithium battery, and a solar panel on the roof.
And this is the Truma Combi system.
So this is a combination furnace hot water heater.
It runs off of the onboard propane tank.
And to turn it on, you simply take this knob and switch it to heat.
This is heat and water heater.
This is just water heater, water heater at different temperatures.
And then you adjust how warm you want the inside, 1 through 5.
There's no actual temperature setting.
There is a very small closet in the bedroom area.
And this floor comes out so that you can hang longer items.
That said, we did find that as Kait was sleeping and her legs were under here,
she would knock this up and it would fall out on her while she was sleeping.
This is the bedroom area.
This is also the hanging closet that I showed you earlier.
But this bed for the two of us is quite small.
In their literature, they say the bed is 75 inches across
and 53 inches wide.
Well, the bed is wider at the head and narrower at the feet.
But I will say, at 5'11, when I lay in this bed,
my head touches this wall, and my feet are flat up against that wall.
If it gives you some idea of how wide the bed actually is or how usable it is.
There are two more cabinets on the side.
Both of them, again, are small, but they hold some clothes and things.
These are LED lights under the bed.
These were the accessory lights I was telling you about earlier.
They have a white light
and a blue light. And then pockets for things like your Kindle, books, cell phones.
I find these actually quite practical, and I really like having them.
There is a shade that goes across the back to block out the rear windows.
And then down below the bed is the garage area.
Now, this garage area is actually quite nice.
There's a lot of room in here,
and we are able to fit all of our luggage, plus all of the accessories they gave us for camping.
So, more than enough room for all of our stuff.
Now, the battery and electrical system are in this cabinet on this side.
And in here, curiously, is the propane tank.
So, the propane is located inside the van.
And there is the tank.
The cabinet door does have a bit of a seal on it,
and there is a vent in there in case any gas does start to leak.
But I still don't know about having it inside the van.
Alright. Now, I know you're all itching to buy a European camper van.
So how much does the Font Vendôme Master Van XS cost?
Well, I was able to find some listings online,
and it looks like they cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 65,000 euros.
Now, we are spending 100 euros a night to rent this in Italy.
If you want to learn more about the rental process and us traveling through Italy,
check out our other camper van in Italy videos.
I will say, after having spent a few days in this,
it really makes us miss our camper van back home.
So I think if we were going to come for an extended journey in Europe,
we would probably ship ours over and just use ours in Europe rather than renting.
That's the tour of our European Class B camper van that we rented in Italy.
If you want to learn more about some of our travels in the United States,
check out my second book: Tales from the Open Road:
The Adventures and Misadventures of RV Living, and you can find it on Amazon.
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head on over to our website at weretherussos.com,
and we'll see you next time. Bye.